Moments
by AndBeAVillian
Summary: Collection of one-shots from the series. Various characters.
1. Chapter 1

_Motion_

* * *

She can't stop.

If she stops she's dead.

Hot breath is on her neck, a cerberus at her heels as she crashes through the under brush praying to a God she isn't sure is real anymore.

_Just please don't let me trip, please don't. Please dear God. Pleasepleaseplease._

The others are out there, Chris, Barry, and the Captain, but she can't care about them now. The world has narrowed to her boots on uneven ground, the air in her lungs, and the hot breath on her neck.

Later the guilt will make her search for Chris all the harder. Later she will see the scrapes and scratches branches left on her skin as she crashed headlong through the trees.

Now she doesn't have time to think.

The door is finally in sight, some kind of refuge from the hell hounds at her back. The hardwood door slams shut just in time on their snarling jaws.

Jill leans against it for just a moment. Slowing down for just a moment too long.

_Oh God._

_They_ are there. Joe Frost with his ragged flesh and teethmarked bone, Enrico Marini with the bleeding bullet hole Wesker left in him. Brad Vickers will live until Racoon itself is overrun but somehow he is here too, dead eyes white and filmy.

The ones she didn't save.

"Jiiiiiiilllllll..." The moans are her name, the accusation left unsaid. _Why did you survive? What gave you the right? You belong here. With us. Jill._

Perhaps she does. Part of her has never left.

Her feet don't stop, not even when muscles scream and shake. If she stops they will get her.

_You belong here. _

If she stops...

The doors of the mansion are endless, the hallways stretching for miles.

Until a hallway has no exit, doors opening to bricks and mortar. The Mansion will never be long enough. Everything has an end.

Even her.

The shambling things are surprisingly fast, hot rancid breath forever on her neck. Her hands grasp the knob of the last door.

_Please God. _

The figure in the doorway wears an old blue S.T.A.R.S. uniform complete with ridiculous shoulder pads. Splotches of blood dot the material, beret still in place over matted dark hair.

_You belong here._

Dull blue eyes in a once-pretty face stare back at her, mouth stained with blood. A face she knows so very well.

Her own.

The scream echoes in her living room, coffee cup crashing off the table to the floor. Jill whirls, grabbing for the gun she is never without, blue eyes dancing frantically from door to door.

_Please God. Please. _

Looking for the faces she knew so well, listening for the familiar shuffling gate. The small white doorways in her kitchen nook are empty, free of blood and the smell of decay.

_Nothing. Thank you God._

Newspaper clippings litter the table, small red circles made around names and dates.

She had passed out at the table, face first in her research. Again.

Whenever she slows down they are waiting.

For years they will wait. The dead are patient.

She makes a fresh pot of the blackest coffee she can find. This Jill Valentine is a creature of perpetual motion; always searching, arguing, and fighting.

Running from a placed wiped off the map.

The Jill Valentine who secretly loved chick flicks and lazy evenings in her pajamas is still in the Mansion with Joe and the others. The Jill with hope bright in her eyes and happy dreams in her sleep.

She is dead. Her rotting lips are smeared with blood.

_Please. _

Slender hands shake as she ties her shoes, quaking so badly she almost can't make the knot. Tears she can't let fall well in her eyes. If they start she is afraid they will never stop.

_You can't run if you can't see. _

She cannot stop.

They are waiting.

She is waiting.

Always.

_Please God. Please._

* * *

A/N: I was trying to write happy things. Didn't go so well.

One my reviews said this was a crappy sexless version of a fic called "Jabberwock". I don't know, haven't read it. I'm sure someone else has done the whole Jill-running-from-zombies-in-her-dreams-and-being-terrified-of-sleeping better than I have.

But do please try to be nice about saying so, yeah?

Thanks.


	2. Chapter 2

_One Foot_

The twenty-something blond shooting pool is eyeing his sister, puffing his chest out and flexing his muscles.

Chris wants to vomit.

_Aw c'mon bro it'll be fun! Like old times, right?_

_Sure Claire. Old times. _

Old times, sneaking Claire in with a fake ID, just shooting pool and hanging out. A good night was a cold beer, a pretty girl, and a friendly pool game with the guys. Bars were a second home for Chris Redfield, the other patrons friends waiting to happen.

He loved bars.

This is the first time back since the Mansion.

He shifts on the bar stool, watching the blond idiot hitting on his little sister with narrow eyes. The moron doesn't notice. The occupant of the stool to the left edges away from him, feeling the leashed rage.

"I've got my motorcycle outside. I'll take you for a ride girl, what'd you say? It's a Harley."

_Fucking moron. _

There's fucking flesh-eating _things_ out there and he wants to impress girls with a Harley? Didn't he realize there was a war going on right under his damn nose?

_If you could hear the screams you'd know. If you saw...If you saw..._

Fingers clench on the barely touched beer, fighting the urge to punch the idiot blathering on about his motorcycle and how hard some accounting class is. About the party his friend is having tomorrow night.

_People died. People are dying asshole don't you give a shit?Doesn't anyone give a shit anymore?_

Claire is eating it up, flipping her red ponytail, sipping her girly drink and smiling. The sick feeling grows in his gut, because this is his sister and he's not supposed to almost hate her for not being there. For not being stuck with the continual worry about where the next outbreak will be, who will it kill?

_And the most important thing on this fucker's mind is will he get laid tonight. I'm fighting for this?_

He isn't supposed to hate the innocent, to feel cheated by them.

The beer is an icy cold chill he can feel sliding down his throat, pooling in his burning stomach. For just a moment he considers ordering another.

Just for a moment.

_I might talk if I'm drunk. They might hear. _

Umbrella won't get any cheap shots on him, even if it would help him forget.

"Hey- Chris!" Claire isn't ready to leave but he drags her out anyway, praying the moron will follow. Maybe swing at him. Any excuse.

The anger in him looking for an escape. Any escape.

Especially a guy like he used to be.

_I was him once. _

Who he can't go back to being. Ever.

"What the fuck?" The alley is deserted by the time she pulls her arm free, full Redfield fire in her eyes. Fight to match his own.

"My squad is gone. They're dead Claire! And all that fucker is thinking about is getting in your pants. And you're letting him! People died and no one fucking cares! Just...Fuck."

Tomorrow her arms will have hand-shaped bruises, tomorrow he will be sorry but tonight he doesn't care.

Tonight is just rage.

She stands staring after him, silent eyes wide as he storms away.

_Fuck. Clair. I didn't mean..._

He'll call Jill because the pretty bits of fluff with their perfect tans and french manicures won't understand when he wakes up screaming.

Tomorrow he'll regret it all. The hate will remind him of Wesker and he will vomit until nothing comes up.

But now is tonight, and sometimes its all he can do to put one foot in front of another.

Tomorrow he will disappear, searching for Umbrella.

Alone.

No one else needs to have his nightmares, feel his hate.

He can't go back, but he isn't Wesker. No one needs to be dragged down with him.

Especially not Claire.

_I'm sorry. I have to go._

_I'll save you Claire. I will. _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: TheRaider: Thank you! It is...unrealistic to expect him to carry nothing, especially when the rest of the world passes by unconcerned. Nothing can prepare you for zombies and death, yeah? But he's going to fight for a world that doesn't really give a shit anyway, that's what makes him the hero. For Claire more than anything else. _

_Welcome back. _

_Dance_

* * *

The rocking chair creaks against the wood floor, steady and rhythmic. The world outside the enclosed porch inky black night. Her blue eyes stare into the distance, seeing nothing but memories.

There was a time when Annette Birkin was fearless. As a child she walked on balcony bannisters, and caught poisonous snakes to the heart-stopping dismay of her parents.

For years it never changed. She studied the most deadly viruses, the worst plagues of humanity. She met Will, a man who was as fascinated by the deadly beauty of mortality as she was. The little ceremony with an ironic white dress and prayers to a deity neither believed in changed nothing but her last name. Umbrella and its dread reach didn't bother her.

Not even the disapproving glare of Will's best friend scared her.

Nothing did.

The devil had filled her dance card and she laughed at him, unafraid.

The baby in her lap stirs, drawing her out of the past, splitting the air with a piercing wail. The most beautiful sound she has ever heard.

_Sherry._

The day Sherry was born everything changed. The once-comforting dark was filled with monsters waiting to snatch her little girl, the beautiful complexity of Umbrella's B.O.W. Research was suddenly a thing able to destroy Sherry's future.

The woman who feared nothing was gone. Everything was sinister.

Especially Umbrella. Family was simply easy collateral. Like the Trevors.

It chills her very soul to think of Lisa Trevor in the same breath with Sherry.

_Will and Al are working on it. It'll be ok. _

She can't convince herself but she tries. Tries so very hard, cuddling her fussy baby tightly in her arms.

_Whatever happens to us...as long as you're ok Sherry it doesn't matter._

Every sound in the inky dark is a creeping monster, every shadow a threat in hiding. Her paranoid blue eyes dart toward each crackling leaf or tree shifting in the night wind.

There was a time when Annette was fearless, had danced with the devil and laughed at him.

Sherry quiets, held tightly in her mother's arms.

Now she knows why the devil laughed back at her.


End file.
